The Big Sleep, regarded as one of the greatest noirs of movie history, had a production almost as complicated as the its plot, adapted, and softened in order to meet the draconian censorship of the Hays Code, from the 1939 Raymond Chandler's novel with the same title, that gave birth to the Philip Marlowe character.
Finished in 1945, then subject to major reshooting to give more depth and breadth to Lauren Bacall's character and, particularly, to her romance with Humphrey Bogart, The Big Sleep was eventually released in 1946, conveniently few months after the wedding of its two leading actors.
As widely known, the plot is baroque to say the least and Hollywood legend has that the very Raymond Chandler, asked by director Howard Hawks about some of the story's nexuses, was not able to explain them! However, the crafted direction of Howard Hawks is able to keep the viewer's attention always alive, subtly moving the centre of gravity of the movie from the developments of the criminal story to the developments of the attraction between Vivian Rutledge, played by Lauren Bacall at her fourth movie after her debut, still a teen-ager and under the direction of her Pygmalion Howard Hawks, in To Have and To Have Not, where she met the man, twenty five years older, at his third marriage and already a bright star, with whom she will form one of the most legendary Hollywood couples, in life and on screen, and that here plays Philip Marlowe, another sophisticated performance of Humphrey Bogart, as usual unrivalled in blending an abrasive harshness with an irrepressible empathy.
The movie, although interesting for its multi-leads narrative built as a sort of matrioska of crime and rotten humanity, does not hide, even from its launching trailers, how much it is focused on the two leading actors and it banks on their close-ups and their intense, sexually charged, bickering, most often a truly witty and lively dialogue, without paying too much attention to clarify, not even at the end, what really happened: in the original version a scene where Inspector Bernie Ohls, a good Regis Toomey, and Philip Marlowe go together over the facts, explaining them for the benefit of the most likely still puzzled audience, has been sacrificed in the final cut to make more room for Lauren Bacall and her relationship with Bogart.
Notwithstanding these patent commercial tricks, the movie had undoubtedly represented a milestone In the history of the classic film noir: while the film is not particularly innovative, neither in the structure nor in the camerawork, the performance of Bogart, already a big star in Hollywood, creates another icon of the private detective character, cynic yet deeply human: even if others have played both Sam Spade and Philip Marlow, The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep have linked them unavoidably to Humphrey Bogart's facial expression.
A movie that every film buff should watch and that, even after many years, has aged very well and has been able to remain interesting and filmically attractive, well beyond the advertised romance of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
Finished in 1945, then subject to major reshooting to give more depth and breadth to Lauren Bacall's character and, particularly, to her romance with Humphrey Bogart, The Big Sleep was eventually released in 1946, conveniently few months after the wedding of its two leading actors.
As widely known, the plot is baroque to say the least and Hollywood legend has that the very Raymond Chandler, asked by director Howard Hawks about some of the story's nexuses, was not able to explain them! However, the crafted direction of Howard Hawks is able to keep the viewer's attention always alive, subtly moving the centre of gravity of the movie from the developments of the criminal story to the developments of the attraction between Vivian Rutledge, played by Lauren Bacall at her fourth movie after her debut, still a teen-ager and under the direction of her Pygmalion Howard Hawks, in To Have and To Have Not, where she met the man, twenty five years older, at his third marriage and already a bright star, with whom she will form one of the most legendary Hollywood couples, in life and on screen, and that here plays Philip Marlowe, another sophisticated performance of Humphrey Bogart, as usual unrivalled in blending an abrasive harshness with an irrepressible empathy.
The movie, although interesting for its multi-leads narrative built as a sort of matrioska of crime and rotten humanity, does not hide, even from its launching trailers, how much it is focused on the two leading actors and it banks on their close-ups and their intense, sexually charged, bickering, most often a truly witty and lively dialogue, without paying too much attention to clarify, not even at the end, what really happened: in the original version a scene where Inspector Bernie Ohls, a good Regis Toomey, and Philip Marlowe go together over the facts, explaining them for the benefit of the most likely still puzzled audience, has been sacrificed in the final cut to make more room for Lauren Bacall and her relationship with Bogart.
Notwithstanding these patent commercial tricks, the movie had undoubtedly represented a milestone In the history of the classic film noir: while the film is not particularly innovative, neither in the structure nor in the camerawork, the performance of Bogart, already a big star in Hollywood, creates another icon of the private detective character, cynic yet deeply human: even if others have played both Sam Spade and Philip Marlow, The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep have linked them unavoidably to Humphrey Bogart's facial expression.
A movie that every film buff should watch and that, even after many years, has aged very well and has been able to remain interesting and filmically attractive, well beyond the advertised romance of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.